Palletized containers are commonly employed to store and transport a wide variety of products. A palletized container generally consists of a container removably fastened at its bottom face to a pallet. The container can be made from a variety of different materials. However, the most popular type of container is a cardboard box because it is lightweight and inexpensive. Unfortunately, cardboard containers alone tend to be too weak for some applications. To solve this problem, industry has developed the practice of securing the cardboard container to a pallet. The pallet increases the strength and facilitates the handling of the palletized container with a fork lift truck. Thus, such palletized containers are often used for products which are heavy, such as bottles of liquids, and for products which are bulky, such as automobile components.
Palletized containers have several shortcomings. A first problem is that palletized containers are bulky and cumbersome. When the contents are removed, the palletized containers occupy an inordinate amount of space, making them difficult to store or transport. Another problem is that the palletized containers are difficult to re-use or recycle. The different materials of the pallet and the container have different useful lifetimes and recycling characteristics. Wooden pallets can generally be re-used after the container is removed. Cardboard containers, on the other hand, may not be capable of re-use after they have been manipulated in the shipping process. It is ecologically and often economically beneficial to recycle the cardboard boxes, but the cardboard must first be separated from other materials. It is most often useful to compact the used cardboard for storage, shipment, and processing of the containers.
A further problem is that machines in the prior art are not well suited to processing palletized containers. There are several crushers or balers which are suited to either wood pallets or cardboard boxes, but not both. Also, there are crushers or balers which are capable of pulverizing and compacting the entire palletized container, but they are generally large, complex, and expensive. Further, the pallet cannot then be re-used nor can the wood and cardboard be separated for efficient recycling if the entire palletized container is compacted.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a machine to separate the pallets from the containers and compact the container portion of the palletized container.